


You're Way Out There Trying To Dance Out Those Blues

by Lesbianna



Category: Simonverse | Creekwood Series - Becky Albertalli
Genre: Blue Reveal, Identity Reveal, Jacques meet Blue, M/M, ShinMeiko is too creative and I had to write this :))), What If Simon Wrote A Different Email
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 10:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18636106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lesbianna/pseuds/Lesbianna
Summary: But since I’m doing full disclosure here, I guess there is something else I should mention. Someone else.There is this boy who is in my circle of friends. Sort of. We have lunch together.Or:Simon wrote a different email to Blue. Bram just can't believe his own luck.





	You're Way Out There Trying To Dance Out Those Blues

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ShinMeiko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinMeiko/gifts).
  * Inspired by [What if...](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18563971) by [ShinMeiko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinMeiko/pseuds/ShinMeiko). 



> So, once again, I was inspired by ShinMeiko's What If series. This time it's chapter 1.  
> I've always loved the concept of the name dropping of Bram in an email to Blue, but I'm shit at writing the emails.  
> Parts of this is shamelessly taken directly from What If Simon Sent a Different Email (such as the email and the dialogue during the love confession). Hope you don't mind! I wanted to surprise you again. Because that's what I like to do. 
> 
> Title is from Becca Mancari's song Golden. I prefer the acoustic version of the song.  
> xoxo

I’m in my bedroom when the email arrives. I’d like to say I was somewhere more exciting - that I was out with Garrett, _kicking the shit_ as he likes to say - or that I at least was in my room because I’m riding out a hangover from last night.

But I’m not. I’m just lying lethargically on my bed, my phone resting on the pillow. It’s stubbornly silent, not giving off a single vibration or sign that I’m receiving a text message.

Not that I’m expecting one anymore. I think that window is probably quite definitely closed. Simon isn’t going to text me - he’ll email me.

I guess I can understand that - he doesn’t want to text me because of how clear I was about what that meant ( _If you think I’m not attracted to you…_ ) but he’s Simon and he likes me as a person. He likes Blue, but he doesn’t want Bram _._ He even still calls me _Blue._ So no texts, but plenty of awkward emails.

I want to say that I’m okay with that - that I’m just _fine_ with being Simon Spier’s friend - but it’s still crushing to know that while Jacques was _exactly_ the boy I hoped he was, _I_ was most definitely not the boy he wanted. I should have known when he guessed Cal Price - who’s cute and artistic and white and who is interested in theatre like Simon - that I’m just not his type.

But even though I know all of this - know that Cal Price asked Simon out, and that going to watch every performance of Oliver is the worst thing I could do for myself and my broken heart, that I need a clean break - even knowing all of these things, I can’t help but wait for him to text me.

What would he even say? ‘ _It didn’t work out with Cal. Do you still want to make out’_?

I like to pretend I would have enough self-respect to say no to that. I’m not sure that’s the honest answer though. I am, after all, still planning to go to the last performance of the play tonight. I’m quite sure that makes me desperate.

My phone buzzes. I open my eyes and exhaustedly roll over on my side, so I can unlock my screen.

It’s an email from _hourtohour.notetonote@gmail.com_. It makes me feel itchy to see the email address, and I really want to just ignore it like I’ve done with half his emails lately. (The other half I answer meticulously, as though we’re still Jacques and Blue.)

But the subject of the email is also shown in the notification, and it makes my heart pound.

**FROM: hourtohour.notetonote@gmail.com**

**TO: bluegreen118@gmail.com**

**DATE: Jan 25 at 10.31 AM**

**SUBJECT: Us.**

_Subject: Us._ _What does that even mean?_ My thumb hovers over the notification, and I feel the old giddy anticipation that these emails used to give me, back when I didn’t know Jacques was Simon. Back when Jacques and Simon being the same person was just a ridiculous fantasy. When Jacques liked Blue as much as Blue liked Jacques.

I don’t know if I want to open it. Not yet. It feels good to see the subject line and feel it used to feel before.

But clearly, my body has a different opinion on this - because I’ve already mechanically opened the new email. And there it is.

_Blue,_

_This is probably the hardest email I’ve ever written to you. And I have this awful feeling that if I can’t make it perfect, it might be our last one. That it is my last chance to get through to you how I feel, what I want and what I need before I lose you forever._

I want desperately to read the rest of the email immediately, the way I always want everything desperately when it comes to Simon, but I force myself to read the first part again. No matter what else Simon feels - or doesn’t feel - about me, he’s scared to lose me. That makes me feel unreasonably happy.

_Since I’ve been outed, I feel like my life is getting slightly too much, and it is making me do stupid things, make stupid decisions, and say stupid stuff… And I could handle all of that if only I had you. I don’t mean meeting you – even though that would be the dream – I just mean having you back as someone to talk to. As I’ve told you before, you are kind of my best friend in a lot of ways, and I need you._

_But you have barely been returning my emails lately. And I can only picture three reasons why you would do such a thing._

Meeting me? What?

I have a sudden sinking feeling that I might have missed something. All of a sudden I cannot finish this email fast enough - I can come back and nitpick the way I nitpick everything afterward.

  1. _Now that you know who I am, you don’t want to be with me, because you don’t find me attractive. That’s fine. I understand that. As much as I like you, and want to be with you, I am fine with staying online friends if that’s what you want. We could talk about everything, you were my safe place, and I would like to get that back. It really doesn’t have to be romantic if that’s not what you want. You should know by now that I would never make you do something you don’t want to do._



It doesn’t have to be romantic if that’s not what I want? I don’t even know what I’m supposed to think, now.

  1. _For some reason, you are done with… this… whatever you want to call what we have. Then, I need you to tell me. Stop half emailing back, stop leaving gifts at my locker as I am trying to get used to your absence, and just call the whole thing off. I’ll get over it. But I can only get over it if I know it’s over. If you don’t want this to continue, please, you have to let me go._



_I_ have to let _him_ go? I know the boy is oblivious, but surely he must have realized that he is the one with all the power here - that _he_ is the one dragging me back to him like a piece of scrap metal to a magnet. That no matter how much I fight it, I can’t stop emailing back, I can’t call it off. Not really. I know I should.

  1. _I hurt you when I guessed wrong. If that’s your reason, then I think I owe you an apology. Not so much for guessing wrong – I think we both knew this could happen. I need to apologize for ever letting you that me thinking you were someone else would matter. That it would somehow impact how I feel about you. Because here is the thing: even though I seem to have been shitty at showing it to you in our emails, it’s you. The one I want. It’s you and no one else._



It's everything I’ve wanted to hear for so long that it aches like an open wound. And despite everything, despite Cal Price, despite me clearly not being what Simon wants, it makes me want to smile giddily. I can’t help it. I smile because no one is here to see me.

_I guess that I have been desperate to find you, and I have used what my dad calls ‘Simon logic’ – which means being a freaking idiot – to find you in any boy who seemed to have an interest in me. And I happen to have shared a moment with Cal Price and my fairy-tale brain apparently thought that it meant he had to be you._

I’m not sure what it means to have _shared a moment_ with Cal Price. It’s got to have something to do with what Simon wrote in his email when he guessed I was Cal. I really hope that that was all that _shared moment_ was. I know that’s mean, but I just really want them to not have had any more than that.

_I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Cal Price came out. He asked me out. In all honesty, I didn’t answer. Which doesn’t matter, because I’m not going. Because he is not you. He lost all his appeal as soon as he wasn’t you._

_Even if you don’t want me, it’s still not something I’m going to pursue, please believe me when I say that. I understand if you were hurt by me thinking you were him, but you have to understand that I was interested in him because he might have been you, and not the other way around_

I can’t really imagine the part about Cal having lost his _appeal_ being true. Even as bitter as I am right now, I definitely can still see how appealing Cal is, but, even more importantly, the part that is currently making my head spin like I’m on a Tilt-a-Whirl: Simon isn’t going to go out with Cal, and it’s because of me.

I’m still not sure I really get it. Did Simon just not ever dare text Blue? Did he not Google the number? Because everything is pointing to him just not knowing who Blue even is - except he definitely received the T-Shirt.

I’m hit with the sudden realization that maybe Simon just never wore the shirt. Maybe he never found the note. Maybe he doesn’t even know that there was a note in that T-Shirt - which means he never read the bit where I ramble about his eyes and his hair and how attracted I am to him. Maybe I should have realized this within seconds of the email as I’m known to be intelligent, but school-smarts evidently don’t translate to smarts when it comes to cute boys who crush on boys thinking they’re me.

_But since I’m doing full disclosure here, I guess there is something else I should mention. Someone else._

I stop breathing.

_There is this boy who is in my circle of friends. Sort of. We have lunch together._

What.

_And we definitely have not shared a moment. But I always feel so self-conscious when he looks at me, and I feel guilty when I talk to him, because it pulls something in my stomach, and it feels like cheating on you. Because it doesn’t matter that Bram Greenfeld_

I have to stop reading, roll on my back and inhale through my nose several times the way you do after a soccer game to get your breath back to normal. My name. He wrote _my name_ in the email and talking to me _pulls something in his stomach_. I know exactly what he’s talking about because he pulls something in my stomach as well. What the fuck is going _on_. I roll back onto my side and continue reading.

_… that Bram Greenfeld has the softest eyes, the greatest soccer calves, that I have this theory that he is so funny even though he barely talks to me, that I felt warm inside when he sat next to me at lunch that day I got outed as if everything was still the same, or I feel like that whenever he looks at me (even though he is probably looking at my friend Leah. I think there is something there)._

Leah. He thinks I’m looking at _Leah_. I mean, I knew he thought I liked Leah before but. I can’t even fathom it. How could he think that? I know I’ve been good at hiding my sexuality, but this is just ridiculous. I’ve always felt like my feelings must be showing all over my face when I’m around him, but to find out he actually, genuinely thinks I’m attracted to the fairer sex just destroys that conception.

Finding out that the cute boy I’ve been pining over thinks _I_ am cute but actually straight because of my inability to function around boys I’m attracted to is just one of the worst things I’ve ever heard, next to the guess that my email alter-ego was actually Cal Price.

_Bram’s cute hands don’t matter, because Bram isn’t you. And whenever I am with him, the thought of you is there too, and it’s stronger. I know that when I meet you, not matter who you are, or what you look like, it will make all the other boys disappear._

I’m still stuck on the part where he keeps talking about how cute I am. (Cute _hands_? I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that.)

And all other boys are going to disappear when he meets me? My hands (my apparently cute hands) are shaking.

_As good as it feels to share a moment with someone who wants me, or to feel butterflies in my stomach whenever a cute boy with the nicest eyes looks at me, it all vanishes when I think about you._

_It would take a thousand Cals to make a Bram, and a thousand more Brams to make a you._

Does that mean I’m just. Better than he thinks even now?

_Because I know you. You’re smart and careful, and weird, and funny. And you notice things and you listen to things, but not in a nosy way. In a real way. You overthink things and remember details and you always, always say the right thing._

I don’t know what to say right now. What to think.

_And I think I like that we got to know each other from the inside out._

Me too Simon. Me too.

 _Obviously, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here. I don’t know if it’s possible to fall in love_ \- fall in love, holy shit - _over email. But I would really like to meet you. I want to try this. And I can’t imagine a scenario where I won’t want to kiss your face off as soon as I see you._

_I’ll be here. I’ll be waiting. One word from you and I’m yours. Online or in life._

_Love,_

_Simon._

I just stare at the last line until the letters kind of blur together, and then I realize I’m crying silent tears. They’re happy tears though, and that’s been a while.

My first thought is - the play. I’ve been planning on going - dragging Garrett along, and now it’s just all the more important. I have to pick the right thing - have to do and say the right thing. Not online. In life.

In a hurry, I get up and start digging through my closet, my stomach feeling in knots. The Tilt-a-Whirl just isn’t stopping.

* * *

Simon’s in the background - Fagin, I remember because of that horrible thing those assholes did - and he’s brilliant and I’m so nervous I almost tear a hole in my shirt from pulling at it nervously. It took me two hours to pick it out, and then I had a nervous breakdown four times before I even left.

I can tell he’s nervous too - I’m not sure whether that’s from it being the last performance or because of the email. Maybe a mix of the two.

I’m not sure what I’ll say when I see him. I try to ask Garrett who’s sitting next to me, but he tells me to just tell him I want to bang, which, I suppose, is his way of showing he’s just as supportive of me being gay as he would be of me being straight.

But because I have no idea what I’m supposed to say, I miss Simon when he leaves after the show is over. I don’t know if I’m deliberately sabotaging myself because I still don’t believe Simon could like me _\- me_ \- even though I read him singing my praises. And he didn’t know it was me.

He did say _one word from you and I’m yours_ , though. He doesn’t seem to care what exactly that word is. Or where.

So even though some part of me wishes I had just marched right up to him after the show, said, “I’m Blue,” and kissed him - and yes, there is a part of me who wanted to do that solely because this place was where he was with Cal Price, the boy who is ridiculously compatible with him and who he would be going out with now if it wasn’t for Blue, if it wasn’t for  _me_. I know it's petty of me. but it's true.

Garrett walks me to my car. He isn’t talking, just kind of walks with me.

“Do you think maybe Burke is warming up to me?” he says thoughtfully, as we stop by my car, and I unlock it. It’s the kind of car that still needs the key to unlock, not just a button, and it’s not actually mine, but my mom’s. She lets me borrow it sometimes, like when I go to every performance of _Oliver_. I’m don’t have that many activities outside of soccer, so she’s happy I’m broadening my horizons.

I _hmm_ noncommittally, because I genuinely have never seen Leah Burke seem even lukewarm around Garrett, but I really don’t want to get into that conversation right now.

“Are you gonna do something about banging Spier?” he then asks. I’m in the process of entering my car, and I bang my head against the roof of the car. I glare at him murderously.

He just smirks. I roll my eyes. I know a lot of people think Garrett is kind of a douche. At moments like this, I kind of agree. I flip him the finger and he shapes a heart with his hand.

“Love you too boo!” he says mockingly. 

I really do love him.

Before I leave the parking lot, I google the address of the Spier family on my phone and let the GPS do its magic.

The drive is both too short and endlessly long. In what feels like no time at all, I’m standing at the front door by a house with an _actual_ white picket fence.

I ring the doorbell, feeling like an intruder in this pretty, white, heterosexual dreamscape.

The door opens.

“Hello?” a man says. He looks a lot like Simon, and he looks just as kind, with wrinkles from smiling, like exactly the kind of dad Simon would write about as Jacques. I didn’t expect to feel this nervous about looking at Mr. Spier, but that was clearly just me being optimistic.

I take a deep breath, and say, “Hello Mr. Spier. I am a friend of Simon’s and I was wondering if I could talk to him.”

I catch a glimpse of Simon coming down the stairs, but he isn’t talking - I think he’s dumbstruck. _I’m_ dumbstruck. This boy likes me. His hair is messy and his glasses are crooked and  _Simon Spier likes me_. He's  _attracted_ to me. The world must have gone crazy.

Simon’s mom - pretty, with a look about her that makes you want to trust her - steps out into the hall as well, and delivers a curt, “I am sorry young man, but Simon is currently grounded. What is this regarding?”

 _One word from you…_ _I’ll be yours…_

“I came to tell him that I’m in love with him,” I say. My voice is surprisingly steady, and I find that I have to look over at Simon - he has to know that I’m serious. That this is real. That I like him. Love him. That it's possible. That I fell in love with him over email too.

His eyes are moon-gray and full of longing as he looks at me. I don't know what they mean.

Then he sharply turns his head and looks at his mom and has the kind of silent communication you only can have with your mom. It takes just a few seconds, but I can tell a lot passes between them.

She huffs. “Alright. I guess it is a one of a kind situation. We will give you ten minutes.”

“We will?” Mr. Spier asks. I can almost hear Garrett making a whipping noise, but I think it’s sweet.

She nods firmly. “We will.” She looks at Simon with the mom-look on her face and says, “ten minutes. The door cracked open.”

Simon mutters a thank you and pulls me along to the stairs. I can’t help but see the pictures - a girl dressed up as a trash can, a tiny Simon holding a giant fish - and it’s Jacques. It’s all Jacques, and I still can’t believe how lucky I am. Simon looks at me questioningly when I finally tear my gaze away from the photos.

We reach his room, and I look around - or pretend to. I kind of get stuck on the fact that I’m in a bedroom with Simon Spier, who thinks I have cute hands and soccer calves.

“I’m sorry for invading like this,” I start, and my voice is shaking now, which is just _great_ , and I’m pretty sure I have reached the height of multitasking if I can simultaneously fantasize about kissing Simon right now and also want to die with humiliation. “I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m sort of improvising, and I had this burst of courage and confidence…”

I just stare at his desk. He’s been emailing me from that computer. He’s been sitting there, listening to Elliott Smith and emailing me. It’s insane. It’s too much.

“Bram,” he says and then he falters. “I’m not sure where this is coming from, and, trust me, if the circumstances were even slightly different, I think I could freaking die of happiness right now, but… I sort of… already have a boyfriend?”

I think I could get used to the Tilt-a-Whirl feelings this makes me feel - because now I’m thinking about how he said it felt like cheating on Blue to be looking at me. I’m the boyfriend - the one he doesn’t know he has.

“I’m sorry if this isn’t the answer you wanted,” He says, and can’t he see my smile? Can’t he figure it out?

“Trust me, it kills me to have to do this. I can’t even imagine how much nerve you must have gathered to be able to do this…” and then he tapers off and just looks at me. I can feel his eyes searing into my skin, and I just study the poster of Daniel Radcliffe on his wall. He doesn’t speak for a bit, and I wonder if he’s figured it out. Figured out why I’m doing it.

But he doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t say _holy shit_ or _no freaking way_ or _you?_

He’s just quiet.

So I try to fill in the blanks for him, and I say something about feeling brave after reading a heartfelt love letter. Because it was a love letter. Even if he didn’t know it was for me.

I can _feel_ the moment he realizes like an earthquake, and it makes me shake with the power of it. Simon Spier is a force of nature.

“Blue?”

And he sounds so awed, and then he’s right in front of me and asking me to look at him, and of course, I do. I look into his moon-gray eyes and he’s touching my cheek and he tells me, in a whisper as soft as the fur of a kitten, “I love you too.”

And then I kiss him. I’ve never kissed anyone before, and I would have thought I’d have been more nervous about it, but I’ve been waiting for this for what feels like forever. I want to climb into his skin. Want to share his heart and have him have mine as well. It’s all too much and too soon and too early but I want it all. I want to push him onto his bed, want to make him feel the lava that’s bubbling under my skin. I feel so much. I only pull away for air - I don’t know how to avoid that part yet, the needing to breathe part.

“I guess you’re not into Leah then,” He says, and it’s so ridiculous and perfectly Simon that it makes me laugh. He’s still staring at my lips, and I have no words for how incredible that is.

“Oh no, I am. But she rejected me, so I decided to go for second best,” I don’t even know how I get the words out - how I manage to talk like I’m just talking with the soccer guys. I’m most definitely _not_ just talking to the soccer guys.

Simon’s lips are slick with my spit. It’s gross if you let yourself think about it too much, but it’s also very attractive.

“We should talk about this,” he says. His lips move so nicely around those words, but I don’t particularly like what he’s saying.

“Tomorrow,” I tell him. “We’ll talk tomorrow,”

And then I’m pulling him in again like I’ve wanted to do every lunch break and fantasized about in every English class, and it’s so good. I think it’s always going to be so good with Simon. I can’t wait to be proven right.

 


End file.
